It does make a small difference. The fact that Dontrelle's made a couple of pinch hit appearances this season tells you that. But it doesn't make a huge difference and that's why Brooks Kieschnick doesn't have a gig in the bigs right now.

TheYanks04 wrote:Answer is next to zero. No one cares how much a pitcher can hit...no one. Just look at Al Leiter. Man could never hit a lick...no one cared. One of the strongest arguments in favor of the DH is that a pitcher has never been drafted one rung higher, given one more dollar on a contract because he could hit 240 instead of 090.

Poor logic, unsound reasoning. There is no good argument for the DH. Sounds like an AL fan to me, probably a Yanks fan. I'm sure if the bases were loaded with 2 outs in the 4th and your pitcher was due up, you'd care a little more about it. I'd love to hear Steinbrenner complain about how his pitchers are hitting, especially now that he has Al Leiter. !

Sure, no one should draft a pitcher higher because he can hit or not, but it has to help when he can. Good hitting pitchers will get you a .300 avg and a few HRs in a season, and may outproduce some of the weaker position players on their team.

Not sure what the best non-Babe Ruth hitting stats for a picher are. I know Bob Lemon had 7 HRs once with a .556 slg. Rick Wise had 2 HRs during his no-hitter. Now that's a good game!